Honoring BMW’s long-standing relationship with Castrol lubricants, one of the six cars will be painted in Castrol Edge livery, and will also promote Aral Ultimate fuels.

In case you’re not familiar with German gasoline brands, Aral (which is owned by BP) has the largest network of filling stations in Germany, and its blue diamond logo is recognized by 90 percent of Germans.

The DTM-prepped M3s will use the products advertised, too. The DTM series has been fueled by Aral Ultimate gasoline since 2005, and Castrol has been a long-term supplier of motor oils and lubricants to BMW.

The expansion of the DTM series in 2012 paves the way for its migration to North America in 2013, as part of the NASCAR-backed Grand-Am series. Beyond that, plans are in the works to adopt a common set of standards and rules for DTM, Grand-Am and Japan’s GT300 series, with this new series launching in 2015.

We’re fans of the wheel-to-wheel racing, in near-production cars, typical in the DTM series. Color us optimistic that a unified series can cut through all of the bureaucratic red tape that exists between three sanctioning bodies, since we’d love to see even more cars dicing on even more tracks.